The Scottish Gin Awards have revealed gin brands which have successfully achieved medal status in 2022, following the awards dinner in Glasgow this month.

When it comes to accommodation in Scotland, there's a fantastic choice of amazing stays from luxury hotels to glamping getaways. Past festivalshave featured gins from Makar, Ginerosity and Strathearn, and the exposure has allowed these boutique Scottish businesses to expand their reach and give customers nationwide the chance to try their products. Kinrara’s highland distillery is nestled in 12,000 acres of Cairngorm National Park, just outside Aviemore. One of Soctland's newest micro distilleries they make Highland dry gin and liqueurs and will eventually produce single malt and rum. Kinrara distillery prides itself on creating a handcrafted small batch spirit. From the distillation of the gin right down to the bottling, everything is lovingly done by hand, by our passionate highland team. The distillery tell us 'Our gins are developed on ‘Wee Alice’, a fifty litre Hoga copper pot still which is ideal for creating unique spirits. Once we are happy with the recipes, we move up to our 100 litre stills for production. These are as yet unnamed. The distillation process sees us macerating our botanicals for several hours.' Although I am partial to a well-made Negroni or Dry Martini, I think the ultimate way to enjoy gin is in the humble G and T. I’m a bit of a gin obsessive so always keen to try something new when I go to an unfamiliar pub or bar. I think ‘perfect serve’ as a concept is a great result of the recent boom in gin, it’s a way for the distillery to highlight some of the principle or more unusual flavours in a gin. I like to enjoy our Kinrara Highland Dry with plenty of ice, a twist of orange peel and Fever Tree Mediterranean tonic.https://foodanddrink.scotsman.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/2128085001_6033318615001_6033317528001.mp4 Over 300 guests from the Scottish drinks industry joined to celebrate achievements, which included the announcement of the winner of the top award of the night, Scottish Gin Distillery of the Year 2022. The Scottish Gin Awards is the one of the largest gin competitions in the UK and revealed its winners last night following a rigorous judging process involving 46 leading experts, the assessment of 63 written entries and the blind tasting of over 200 gins, all distilled in Scotland. I try very hard to find the time to experiment, although the vast majority of my work week is taken up overseeing the production of our core range of gins, innovation has always been a key part of my role here. I’ll always keep my eye out for novel or interesting ingredients and we keep a fairly large botanical library at the distillery, which we continue to add to on a regular basis. We’ve also got a cabinet full of experimental gins and distillates in our tasting room. For me, a lot of inspiration comes through cooking, which is one of my interests outside of work, in fact two of our Distiller’s Edition gins have their origin in flavour pairings you would expect to find in Eastern cuisines. It’s not unusual to see me distilling on the 1.5 litre still a couple of times a week trying out some flavour combinations that I’ve tasted in a dish.

expert judges from the distilling and drinks industry were presented by flights of samples and asked to taste and assess each liquid across a range of quality standards. The Scottish Gin Awards 2023 launches in the New Year and takes place in Glasgow in November. To register for updates visit www.scottishginawards.co.uk

In the highly sought after taste competition, 12 Gold Medals were presented with Caorunn, Edinburgh Gin, Holyrood Distillery and Isle of Bute each collecting 2 golds each. Holyrood Distillery and Eden Mill tied in first place for the most amount of medals achieved with each of them taking home 4 medal positions. Any new product goes through a long process of research and development. With our flagship Highland Dry gin, we started by distilling samples of the two estate-foraged botanicals, rosehips and rowan berries, before tasting them individually and thinking what other flavours would complement them. I also looked into the scientific literature to see the composition of their essential oils to help guide the process. From there, it was a case of running a lot of trial distillations on the 1.5 litre still and seeing which we liked best, both in terms of different flavours and intensity of flavours. Discover wonderful wildlife tours to book and experience in Scotland, including bird watching safaris, whale watching, farm tours and much more! Last year Lidl's gin range increased by 41 per cent across UK stores - a testament to the country’s growing interest in craft gin.